this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

“Imagine installing a solar array 1km wide along the 36,000km geostationary orbit,”

This seems like a very weird idea for where to put a space based solar array. The geostationary orbit is already pretty crowded, and a lot of the array would be edge on to the sun at any given time.

[–] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

GEO is the traditional place to put powersats. They stay in the sun for like 99% of the year and they're always above your rectenna. Also there's way less variation in velocity among GEO satellites so you'd expect Kessler syndrome to be less of a concern.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sure, but a big ass square of powersat in GEO above your ground station is a very different prospect from a band around the entire orbit

[–] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Oh I seriously doubt they meant a 36,000 km by 1 km wide array. They probably mean 1km by 1km which should be gigawatt scale.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago

Maybe the article/translation mangled what the scientist they're quoting was saying